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Synaeresis
In linguistics, synaeresis (; also spelled syneresis) is a phonological process of sound change in which two adjacent vowels within a word are ''combined'' into a single syllable. The opposite process, in which two adjacent vowels are pronounced separately, is known as " diaeresis". For any given word, speakers generally hold a traditional view about the ''standard'' pronunciation of that word. When realized in a careful reading style, each particular word is associated with this single, ''standard'' phonetic form. However, each word also possesses multiple non-standard or reduced phonetic forms which are produced in a greater range of contexts. These multiple variations in the pronunciation of a single word are referred to as allophonic variants. To classify one of these other forms as an allophonic variant of a word means that pronouncing the word in this way will not change the intended meaning of the word. Synaeresis is one of various phonological processes in which seg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diaeresis (prosody)
In poetic meter, diaeresis ( or , also spelled diæresis or dieresis) has two meanings: the separate pronunciation of the two vowels in a diphthong for the sake of meter, and a division between feet that corresponds to the division between words. Synaeresis, the pronunciation of two vowels as a diphthong (or as a long vowel), is the opposite of the first definition. Etymology Diaeresis comes from the Ancient Greek noun ''diaíresis'' (διαίρεσις) "taking apart" or "division" (also "distinction"), from the verb ''diairéō'' (διαιρέω) "take apart", a compound of the verb ''airéō'' (αἱρέω) "take" and the preposition ''diá'' (διά) "through" (in compounds, "apart"). French In the phonology of Standard French, the letters ''ie'' are normally pronounced or except after ''Cr'' or ''Cl'', when they indicate two syllables, or . (That exception came into the language only around the 17th century, as can be seen in poems before then.) In some French dialect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaplasm
A metaplasm is generic term for almost any kind of alteration, whether intentional or unintentional, in the pronunciation or the orthography of a word. The change may be phonetic only, such as pronouncing ''Mississippi'' as ''Missippi'' in English, or acceptance of a new word structure, such as the transformation from ''calidus'' in Latin to ''caldo'' (hot) in Italian. Orthographic metaplasms have been used in philosophy to advance humanity's conceptual terrain, such as when Derrida adapted Heidegger's Destruktion into deconstruction or the French term ''différence'' into différance. Changes at either level may or may not be recognized in standard spelling, depending on the orthographic traditions of the language in question. Originally the term referred to techniques used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry, or processes in those languages' grammar. Sound change Many phonological changes found frequently in the natural development of languages are metaplasms: * Epenthesis, ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elision
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound. An example is the elision of word-final /t/ in English if it is preceded and followed by a consonant: "first light" is often pronounced /fɜ:s laɪt/. Many other terms are used to refer to particular cases where sounds are omitted. Citation forms and contextual forms A word may be spoken individually in what is called the citation form. This corresponds to the pronunciation given in a dictionary. However, when words are spoken in context, it often happens that some sounds that belong to the citation form are omitted. Elision is not an all-or-nothing process: elision is more likely to occur in some styles of speaking and less likely in others. Many writers have described the styles of speech in which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiatus (linguistics)
In phonology, hiatus, diaeresis (), or dieresis describes the occurrence of two separate vowel sounds in adjacent syllables with no intervening consonant. When two vowel sounds instead occur together as part of a single syllable, the result is called a diphthong. Preference Some languages do not have diphthongs, except sometimes in rapid speech, or they have a limited number of diphthongs but also numerous vowel sequences that cannot form diphthongs and so appear in hiatus. That is the case of Japanese, Nuosu, Bantu languages like Swahili, and Lakota. Examples are Japanese () 'blue/green', and Swahili 'purify', both with three syllables. Avoidance Many languages disallow or restrict hiatus and avoid it by deleting or assimilating the vowel or by adding an extra consonant. Epenthesis A consonant may be added between vowels ( epenthesis) to prevent hiatus. That is most often a semivowel or a glottal, but all kinds of other consonants can be used as well, depending ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syncope (phonetics)
In phonology, syncope (; from grc, , , cutting up) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel. It is found in both synchronic and diachronic analyses of languages. Its opposite, whereby sounds are added, is epenthesis. Synchronic analysis Synchronic analysis studies linguistic phenomena at one moment of a language's history, usually the present, in contrast to diachronic analysis, which studies a language's states and the patterns of change across a historical timeframe. In modern languages, syncope occurs in inflection, poetry, and informal speech. Inflections In languages such as Irish and Hebrew, the process of inflection can cause syncope: * In some verbs : (to play) should become * (I play). However, the addition of the causes syncope and the second-last syllable vowel is lost so becomes . : (katav), (he) wrote, becomes (katvu), (they) wrote, when the third-person plural ending (-u) is added. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synizesis
Synizesis () is a sound change (metaplasm) in which two originally syllabic vowels (hiatus) are pronounced instead as a single syllable. In poetry, the vowel contraction would often be necessitated by the metrical requirements of the poetic form. Synizesis is also understood to occur as a natural product in the evolution of a language over time. A tie may be used to represent this pronunciation: ''dē͡hinc'' (i.e., ''deinc''). Definition ''Synizesis'' comes from the Greek (''synízēsis'', "a sitting together") from (''syn'', "with") and (''hizō'', "I sit"). The term was used to describe this vowel change as early as the 2nd century CE, by the Alexandrian grammarian, Hephaestion. Ancient grammarians, such as Hephaestion, defined synizesis broadly as the “σύλληψις” (''syllepsis'', “a taking together (of sounds)”) of any two syllables. More contemporary scholarship has, however, recognised that, when so constructed, synizesis is given an unjustifiably bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synaloepha
A synalepha or synaloepha is the merging of two syllables into one, especially when it causes two words to be pronounced as one. The original meaning in Ancient Greek is more general than modern usage and includes coalescence of vowels within a word. Similarly, synalepha most often refers to elision (as in English contraction), but it can also refer to coalescence by other metaplasms: synizesis, synaeresis or crasis.W. Sidney Allen, ''Vox Graeca'', chart of "Types of vowel-junction", p. 98. Examples {{Original research, date=January 2022, section Spanish, Portuguese and Italian use synalepha, which is important in counting syllables in poetry. An example is in this hendecasyllable (11-syllable line) by Garcilaso de la Vega: : ''Los cabellos que al oro oscurecían.'' :: The hair that endarkened the gold. The words ''que'' and ''al'' form one syllable in counting them because of synalepha. The same thing happens with ''-ro'' and ''os-'' and so the line has eleven syllables (syll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's ''Iliad'' centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The ''Odyssey'' chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammatical Conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking''. While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb. Verbs may inflect for grammatical categories such as person, number, gender, case, tense, aspect, mood, voice, possession, definiteness, politeness, causativity, clusivity, interrogatives, transitivity, valency, polarity, telicity, volition, mirativity, evidentiality, animacy, associativity, pluractionality, and reciprocity. Verbs may also be affected by agreement, polypersona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek Verbs
Ancient Greek verbs have four moods ( indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative), three voices ( active, middle and passive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). * In the indicative mood there are seven tenses: present, imperfect, future, aorist (the equivalent of past simple), perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect. (The last two, especially the future perfect, are rarely used). * In the subjunctive and imperative mood, however, there are only three tenses (present, aorist, and perfect). * The optative mood, infinitives and participles are found in four tenses (present, aorist, perfect, and future) and all three voices. The distinction of the "tenses" in moods other than the indicative is predominantly one of aspect rather than time. The different persons of a Greek verb are shown by changing the verb-endings; for example () "I free", () "you free", () "he or she frees", etc. There are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek Nouns
In Ancient Greek, all nouns are classified according to grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and are used in a number (singular, dual, or plural). According to their function in a sentence, their form changes to one of the five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, or dative). The set of forms that a noun will take for each case and number is determined by the declension that it follows. Cases The five cases of Ancient Greek each have different functions. Nominative The Ancient Greek nominative, like the Proto-Indo-European nominative, is used for the subject and for things describing the subject ( predicate nouns or adjectives): * : : "For Socrates was wise and just." Vocative The vocative is used for addressing people or things. It is frequently the same as the nominative in the singular and always the same in the plural. * : : "What you say is true, Socrates." Accusative The accusative is used for the object of a verb, and also after preposi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the Greek dialect of the ancient region of Attica, including the '' polis'' of Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of ancient Greek. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine, it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch. Origin and range Greek is the primary member of the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European language family. In ancient times, Greek had already come to exist in several dialects, one of which was Attic. The earliest attestations of Greek, dating from the 16th to 11th centuries BC, are written in Linear B, an archaic writing system used by the Mycenaean Greeks in writing their language; the distinction between Eastern and Western Greek is believed to have arisen by Mycenaean times or before. Mycenaean Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_Homer_and_his_Guide_(1874).jpg "Click for more on -> Homer")
